Does God exist? Or, is there a God?

It's a "Fallacious argument" to recommend one disassociate ones self from the likes of a nut job like O'Hair, really?! So you would associate yourself with her and her twisted mentality? Are you then a Stalinist, like her? She tried to defect to the USSR, and got kicked out for being too extremist!

This is also a fallacious argument. To say that I'm wrong because you think I sound like someone you don't like is not an argument. Care to try again, SFC (Join to see) ?

Wait, so your telling me you like O'Hair! That is the only reason I can think of that anyone would defend her...

She was disavowed by her own son!

Considering all the claims of evolution, that takes more faith than believing in an intelligent designer. it's like saying I believe in Apple and the iPhone but I dont believe it was designed. It just happened over billions of years. That takes A LOT more faith than saying somebody designed it. 1SG (Join to see) SPC (Join to see) MAJ Carl Ballinger

SPC Nathan Freeman That's certainly a perfectly valid opinion, but it's really not the case. It takes no faith not to believe something. Belief without evidence is faith. What is non-belief without evidence? [I know you think this to be a case of non-belief 'with' evidence. ;) This discussion already has a home in another thread we're participating in.]

Also, it can take no faith to believe something. For the research I can't conduct or otherwise verify myself, I trust scientists to know what they're doing. They, as a whole, have a pretty good track record for improving knowledge of the universe, something that can be verified. I also know that not every individual claim made by all scientists can be true. If you call that faith, that's a perfectly valid opinion, too. But that's also not so.

"It just happened over billions of years." What scientist claims this is the case? What does this even mean? [this one might belong in that other conversation, too.]

Paleontology and evolution both claim that dinosaurs and the earth and the universe are millions and billions of years old. I thought you read about that stuff lol SPC (Join to see)

SPC Nathan Freeman I don't understand your response.

You have a great testimony, TSgt Liza Kazee.

Sure is. I would be super pissed if i believed in the gods that OP described. There's a magical being that can fix things so no one starves, gets injured, etc., and yet they're letting it happen every day.

Believing in evolution is just an excuse to not have to deal with believing in a god. You think it's ridiculous to believe an intelligence is responsible for life? Your only other option is to believe it all came around accidentally. And the more you know about the complexity of life, the more ridiculous that notion becomes.

You can rail about money spent on religion all you want, but that's exactly what's happening now. Evolution is a faith-based religion. Money spent on good science is money well spent. Money spent on trying to convince us it all came about because of evolution is religious propaganda. The reason it doesn't bother you is that it's your religion.

1stLt Nick S God would only have used evolution as a tool if he were an idiot. The whole idea of evolution is trial and error (if "trial" is even the right word), while a supreme intelligence is capable of getting it right the first time.

Your faith in evolution is astounding. Have you ever asked yourself why you believe every piece of physical evidence of so many different life forms can only be explained by evolution? Do you really think a (hypothetical) God who is able to create life in the form of a single cell would not also be able to create life on a vast scale? That a God who is pleased to create life would not also be pleased to create an infinite variety of it?

It's interesting to me, it seems the only god you are capable of imagining is an incompetent bumbling fool. I don't blame you for not believing in that god -- I don't believe in it either.

SSgt Christopher Brose Scientists know evolution occurred as well as anything can be known, from indicators in our genes and in the history of the earth as revealed by fossils, to modern-day experiments (my favorite involves fruit flies, but there are more examples). You believe them to be in error, why? because it seems incredible that single-cell organisms over time became us? It is incredible. It may even SEEM impossible. What scientific theory do you propose in its place? If not a scientific theory, then what makes your ideas on the matter correct?

Sgt (Join to see) Thumbs-up for the idea, thumbs-down for using profanity where the rules don't allow. Cancels out. Well-spoken, though. To bad your opinion that people are scared or lazy doesn't really indicate whether OP's god exists or not.

SPC (Join to see) Well, I have been out of the country for a while, but I'm back now. You asked for a scientific theory? How about Cell Theory?

The Cell Theory states:
All living organisms are composed of cells. They may be unicellular or multicellular.
The cell is the basic unit of life.
Cells arise from pre-existing cells.

Pay close attention to that last one. Cells come from pre-existing cells. The non-god explanation for the beginning of life demands that the original cells come from something else -- namely, a handful of amino acids.

Stanley Miller hypothesized what a pre-life earth's atmosphere was, added the ingredients in a carefully controlled lab setting, and added a carefully controlled spark. He ended up with some amino acids -- which is very remarkable, by the way. But people made the leap from "molecular building blocks of DNA" to a fully formed self-replicating organism with absolutely no evidence whatsoever. It's like saying that because you find a pile of bricks somewhere, a fully functioning hospital is inevitably going to assemble itself. The idea that a few amino acids in a carefully controlled lab environment inevitably leads to fully formed life is an article of faith, arrived at by the bias and predisposition of the person believing it.

Every cell has to take in energy & nutrients and excrete waste, which means it has to have a means of allowing certain things to pass through and other things not to, which requires a complex membrane; it has to regulate its own internal pressure relative to the outside environment so it won't explode or implode, etc. Most single cell organisms need to be mobile to a degree. It needs to be able to detect its own environment, to find food and avoid danger. And above all, it needs to be able to reproduce a copy of itself.

Which means that in a hypothesized oxygen-free primordial soup, there had to be an accumulation of the right elements (without dissipating); at the precise moment that meteor/lightning/volcano/whatever provided just enough energy to spark the elements into organic compounds (but not enough energy to obliterate what was there); and that those organic compounds (along with many other elements not accounted for in any scientific experiments) somehow assembled themselves into a form that could move, eat, poop, and reproduce. Which begs the questions: How could it survive in that environment long enough to accomplish any biological functions? Why would the energy that supposedly resulted in organic compounds not immediately kill the organism? Where would it find food?

Basically the evolutionist relies on an honest-to-goodness miracle to account for the beginning of life. Which is cheating.

You sure you're not a Skynet prototype?

MAJ (Join to see) Wierd shit happens, sir. There are many more people who don't get lucky and get killed early in life or later in life, or just have really crappy lives. I'd say a few lucky instances would be expected, hence no divine intervention necessary.

Well said, SSG Amey. Blessings.

So your argument is because science doesn't have every answer god is real?

sir the element of needing faith to explain the theories of the mysteries of evolution is the exact same faith I believe God exists. Wind exists unless we see dye or things moving we cant prove why it is invisable. We feel the affects of its presence so we exercise faith that it does. Dad used to tell is if we do not believe the first chapter of Gods word by faith we would be too spiritually blind to have the faith to belive the rest of the Bible. I am saying I believe the Bible is real and factural not with science but by faith. I know this is illogical but isnt that what faith and mircles are made up of?

SSG Dwight Amey MSA, MSL, BS, AS - So that is a recurring defense I come across, that Atheists/non theists have faith in science because (insert example of wind), thing is, the answer to that is an unequivocal no. There is zero faith in science, that's why it is self correcting. You don't believe in science, you do science and you accept the answers that come out of the scientific method, whether or not those answers agree with you or your world view. And for the wind argument, no wind is something that is actually measurable, I can test for wind, I can measure the energy that it has, I can even map it, so it is literally the complete opposite of faith because it is quantifiable. Wind exists whether or not we like it or accept it.

You already know that what you believe to be true is illogical, the only question that remains is why do you not reject the illogical and accept reality? I can take a stab at it though, it has nothing to do with reality, it ahs to do with the attachment of your belief to something you hold dear, which, never has, does not now, nor will it ever make that belief true.

You and I are both Atheists, the only difference is I taker it one god further. You already know things in your head don't make sense, when are you going to do something about it?

physical laws of reality, the cosmos, and physiology